


Poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is

by would_you_like_some_angst_with_that



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Blood, Death, Multi, Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 07:44:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4296450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/would_you_like_some_angst_with_that/pseuds/would_you_like_some_angst_with_that
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike connects to various Buffyverse members through poetry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is

_Poetry is man’s rebellion against being what he is._  – James Branch Cabell

When Spike was turned and took on his new name, he vowed to never go back to being William. So he burned down his childhood home and the vampire who had once been his mother along with it. But afterwards, when he had returned to the place where he and Drusilla were staying at the time, he realised that he felt a sick sort of déjà vu. Their room looked more familiar than it had the day before. He entertained the idea that he was being punished for what he had done until Dru had mentioned his mother’s lovely baubles and he realised that before he had burnt the house down, Dru had taken a few things and placed them around their space.

Enraged, he had smashed all of the porcelain, slashed all of the pillows, and thrown out all of the clothes that Dru had stolen. When she returned from feeding, she found him surrounded by broken glass, his hands bleeding, his eyes wild. She had rant then, past him, to her chest of belongings, opened it, and gratefully picked up a bundle that had been saved. In it were seven small books of poetry—Williams’ collection of his favourite poets.

What ensued after was their first fight, the broken glass piling up, the blood flowing more freely now, both of them screaming, threatening to leave each other, kill each other…all over a few poems. Dru won that fight, but Spike vowed to burn the books at the next available opportunity. But that opportunity came and passed when he quickly realised that those books were, ironically, a godsend. He noticed that Dru always had at least one of them on her person, hidden inside the folds of her dress. He would sometimes catch her reading them and he noticed that her speech changed to incorporate lines from the poems when she talked. Even though it only took her a few months to learn them all by heart, she kept them with her even after she left him. But most of all, he realised that because of those books, her mood considerably lifted and whenever he recited them to her right before she fell asleep, her nightmares became less frequent and less disturbing.

When Angelus learned of the books, he tried to take them from Drusilla, but she had screamed so loudly that Darla had come to see what was the matter. The older vampire had then tried to wheedle them off of her but had met with so much resistance that she finally told Angelus to go take his anger out on the boy instead. And so, for his troubles, Spike was beaten and fucked to the tune of the poems that he now desperately screamed out night after night. Still, after the beatings, he’d crawl into his and Dru’s bed, blood splattering  _everywhere,_ and he’d whisper those same lines that hours before he had had his bones broken to. Over time, the poems became symbol of his love for Dru and for his stubborn, irritating habit of not breaking.

By the time they arrived in Sunnydale, the books had become as beloved as they had once been. Dru insisted on taking them all with her and this time, Spike willingly let her. But he forgot about them completely when Angelus reappeared and it was only, a year later, when he was with Joyce in her kitchen one night, that he was reminded of them.

Joyce had just made him his third hot chocolate that night when she had asked him if he remembered what he had been like  _before_. In his tirade against his former self, he let slip that he had been a god-awful poet. Joyce had immediately asked him if he still liked poetry and after choking on his drink for a good minute, he finally admitted that he did. Joyce had laughed and gone out of the room for a moment, bringing back her own collection of poetry, a huge tome that she had kept since college.

It was only when Buffy came in through the door did they realize that they had been talking animatedly about poetry for two hours. At the door, Joyce had asked Spike to bring his own favourite poems for next time. That night, he had tore his crypt apart, looking for his books. He found four—Tennyson, Blake, Keats, and Byron, the other three having been taken by Dru. He was astonished that they hadn’t crumbled apart, that the words were still legible. Every night afterwards, he’d appear in the Summers kitchen, reading to Joyce his poetry while she read to him hers. And when Joyce got sick, he’d sneak into the hospital room, leave her handwritten poems to find when she woke up. And when Joyce died, he dug a hole at the top of her grave and put in his book of Keats, the one that he had brought her after that night and that she had asked to keep.

When Buffy and Willow took American Lit together at UC Sunnydale, Spike seemed to be at the house even more than usual, especially when they reached the poetry section. It was Tara though who caught him one night, completely engrossed in a book of modern female poets after everybody else had gone to sleep.

_I see you’re a big Dickinson fan._

No amount of threatening could wipe the grin off her face. And while he was seriously considering whether the migraine he would get from killing her would really be all that bad, she sat by him and flipped the page over.

_If you like Emily, you might like Sylvia._

He had stared at her, for once completely speechless, and before he could stop himself, his eyes drifted over to the opened page.

That night, he learned about Whitman, Eliot, Angelou…

That night, he also learned that Red’s girl was surprisingly good company.

Tara had then mentioned that Buffy was struggling with her classes, and Spike took it on himself to help. He learned her schedule and at every due date, Buffy always had a paper to turn in. The mysterious assignments that appeared in her bag, done on time and that always received As were explained as Tara’s doing. Spike allowed her to take the credit for his work in exchange for four books of poetry. And when Tara told him that buffy had dropped out, he had been surprised at how hard he had taken it.

When Tara died, like he had done with Joyce, he buried her book of Plath along with her body. This time, he brought both her and Joyce flowers, orchids for the mother, sunflowers for the girl. It was only when he was recruited as a Potentials Trainer that he stopped visiting their graves for good.

But it was before that when Spike found another lover of poetry in the old man. This was after Buffy had thrown herself off the parapet, leaving her friends aimless, desperate. Giles had blamed himself for her death and the easiest way to quiet the constant guilty whispers was to fill his mind with noise. Each night after patrol, Giles would turn on the box and let his eyes burn. When  _Passions_  ended, he’d watch the movies that Joyce had in the bookshelf until the girls awoke and he’d go to the Magic Box for another day of work. Spike found him there one night and sat down on the edge of the couch, both of them silent, watching. Giles had put in Lawrence Olivier’s  _Hamlet_  then and before either one of them knew it, they were sitting shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the couch, mouthing the words to the play.

They watched all of Shakespeare after that, even venturing to discuss the plays. Giles was shocked to learn that when he wanted to be, Spike was well spoken and eloquent. It was times like these that Giles almost forgot that Spike was a vampire, the young nobleman shining through the gleam of his eyes, the eagerness of his words strange to hear.

But then Buffy was resurrected and the late night discussions and TV binge-watching ended.

When The First came to Spike and it was decided it’d be safest to chain him in the Summers basement, Buffy took it on herself to bring everything she thought he’d need from his crypt. He woke one night with Buffy above him and a box in his face. Beneath the bottles and candles, he found the eight books of poetry he had kept.

_Dawn said you might want them._

He looked up quickly, a sick fear rising his throat, but she was already heading up the stairs.

Buffy never mentioned those books to him again, even when she saw him reading them and he never tried to explain himself. He had entertained the idea, once or twice, of whispering them in her ear in their more intimate, kinder moments, but he had been terrified that she wouldn’t have responded well to them. In any case, silence had always been more of a balm between them than any words could have been.

The night before he died, he placed the books in Joyce’s bookshelf, smiling to himself. It was funny that hundreds of years after their expiration date, they would end their lives here, in the home of a vampire slayer. It was funny how life went (or un-life, if he were to be technical about it). He had tried for years to transform himself from the simpering, pathetic, poetry-obsessed William into a cool, hardened killer. And here he was, about to die, saving the world, because of a vampire slayer, his books of poetry ushering him out.

The cosmic joke didn’t stop there.

When he came back as a ghost in L.A., he recruited Fred to help him gain back his body. To his surprise, he found a delightful friend in her, reminiscent of Tara. He was struck with how similar they were even more when one day, he asked her what she kept listening to while she was working. She took off her headphones, smiled shyly, and said,

_Spoken word._

She had laughed at his head tilt and had put it on the computer so he could hear as well. As he listened, he couldn’t help but feel the same sense of awe as he had when he was a human, reading his first poems. This is where it all came together, words and rhythm and—

 _It’s music_ , he had said, fascinated.

 _All poetry is music._  She had looked quite seriously at him then.  _Everything is music._

He made it a point to come to the lab more often, even after he became corporeal.

There was no burial of books or giving of flowers when Fred died. Instead, Spike spent the days after on Angel’s phone, listening to spoken word on Youtube. He didn’t even bother clearing his history so when Angel eventually would get his phone back, the older vampire would, in his curiosity, go through it. He’d end up staying up nights listening to what Spike had looked at the days before. Angel had the good sense not to question Spike about his viewing decisions and Spike never offered to explain them.

The night before the battle, Spike came into Angel’s room quietly and leaned against the wall. Angel was still awake in bed but he held his tongue, perturbed by the stillness of the other vampire.

They stayed like that, in complete silence, not moving, for ten minutes before Spike slowly began making his way to the bed. And like he had done countless times years before, he dropped to his knees and put out his hands to touch his grandsire.

And just as they had done that first night, bones broke and blood painted the headboard. This time however, the blood was older, staler, and the anger and pain were slower, deeper. Spike whispered and moaned his verses into Angel’s mouth, pouring over a century of hatred and hurt into his syllables, while Angel took time to remember his childe’s body, finding that not much had changed in the last 140 years. It was just as malleable as it had been, just as irritating in its stubbornness of not breaking.

 _Still a poet, after all?,_  Angel had growled.

 _Still. No thanks to you, old man_ , Spike had hissed.

And in that alley, Spike couldn’t stop laughing.

 _Dulce et decorum est_ , Spike had grinned, sword in hand, rain and blood blinding him.

 _Pro patria mori*_ , Angel had shouted back, looking at Spike one last time, grinning just as widely.

And Spike had laughed because this must have been the thousandth time the universe had laughed with him. Yet again, here he was, saving the world and dying for and because of it, fighting side by side with the very vampire he had sworn ages ago he’d brutally kill.

 _It’s funny_ , he had yelled, the flames almost on them.

 _What’s that?,_  Angel had asked, looking ahead.

_Everything._

And Spike didn’t need to see Angel’s face, he knew he was cracking a smirk, and his eyes were hard, ready, blazing, matching fire with fire.

_That it is._

That it is.

**Author's Note:**

> *Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, an anti-war poem by Wilfred Owen. From Latin, it translates into ‘It is sweet and right to die for your country’.
> 
> http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html


End file.
